


From the Wreckage

by misura



Category: Out of the Dark - David Weber
Genre: M/M, Rebuilding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-01
Updated: 2016-12-01
Packaged: 2018-09-08 08:48:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,275
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8838157
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/misura/pseuds/misura
Summary: Vlad brings back a surprise from one of his foraging trips.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [oneiriad](https://archiveofourown.org/users/oneiriad/gifts).



> well, hey, I told myself, you've got an idea for a quick treat as well as one for a regular-sized fic, so how about you get that quick treat out of the way first? and then it was eight hours later, and I'd just finished the first draft for this one.
> 
> here's to hoping it'll also be fun as a feature length fic

Stephen Buckevsky stared with some incredulity at the pile of ... _trading goods_ Vlad's latest foraging-slash-trading expedition had resulted in.

Food was still the most sought after commodity. It was going to stay that for a long time. One good harvest wouldn't have changed that - and, of course, simply because the harvest had been good in this particular part of the world, that didn't mean it had been good everywhere.

When it came to food distribution, there was only so much even Vlad could do.

Still, in the settlements Stephen'd visited himself these past months, people had no longer looked like they were on the verge of starvation. He hadn't been confronted by parents, willing to do whatever it took to feed their children. Instead, several times, he'd found himself helping put up a barn, or a home. He'd found himself thatching roofs and digging wells.

People were still eager for food, yes, but it was because they wanted to be prepared if things went bad again. Having a solid amount of food made people feel safe. It enabled them to worry about other things than where their next meal would be coming from.

Earth was beginning to recover from the Shongairi invasion.

When Vlad had suggested they started trading for food instead of handing it out for free, Stephen hadn't quite understood. They had more than enough of it, and they didn't need it.

 _"If we let people trade with us now, they are more likely to trade with others, later,"_ Vlad had said, and okay, fair enough. There were only so many places they could visit, after all, so it made sense to encourage people to begin acting like good neighbors, and to stop looking at other settlements like potential threats or rivals.

Not that Take and his friends hadn't done a good job discouraging the kind of behavior that would warrant that particular mindset.

All of which was fine and good, but it did nothing to explain, well, _that_.

"You look surprised, my Stephen." Vlad smiled. Of all the things that had become different these past months, that smile was the one thing that hadn't. From the first time he'd seen it, that smile, more than anything else, had made him trust Vlad - and he'd never regretted doing so.

After he'd stopped being human, and dead, Stephen had needed several weeks to get used to his new sight. He wasn't exactly a stranger to night-vision goggles, and he'd certainly spent a fair amount of time staring at screens that showed reality in a way very different from what it would have looked like had he studied it with his regular eye sight.

It hadn't prepared him for vampire sight, or whatever the term for it was. _Nothing_ had looked quite right anymore. Added to a huge amount of other physical changes, it hadn't been easy.

Fact was, if it hadn't been for Vlad, he wasn't sure if he'd have managed to stay sane.

True, Stephen'd thought of him as 'Mircea' at the time, and the whole 'so I'm actually the guy Bram Stoker wrote a book about that got next to nothing right' thing had been a lot to take in, but well, Mircea had still been Mircea. So what if 'Mircea' wasn't the name he'd been born with? That didn't mean he wasn't the same person Stephen had come to trust, respect and even love.

(All right, so it was probably a good thing that he'd worked his way through _that_ particular realization before this whole 'turned into a vampire after almost dying' situation had occurred.)

"I guess I thought we'd be trading for stuff that was actually, well, useful?"

"You think preserving mankind's cultural heritage isn't 'useful'?" Vlad asked. His smile suggested that he knew exactly what Stephen was trying to get at here.

His smile _didn't_ suggest that pretty soon now, they'd find some privacy so that Stephen could give him a proper 'welcome back'. That didn't mean it wasn't going to happen as soon as they were done here.

Stephen took another look at 'mankind's cultural heritage'. "You do know the odds of being able to find anything to play those on are pretty much nil, right?"

"Perhaps." Vlad shrugged. "Perhaps not."

Meaning he might have located one such a device already. " _Were_ you planning on actually watching them?"

Stephen had seen his fair share of action movies growing up. They'd seemed to have lost some of their magic after he'd enlisted and seen up close what bullet wounds really looked like.

It had helped telling himself that only idiots would expect movies to be realistic. The genre didn't matter - movies were for entertainment. For watching with friends or family, curled up on the couch with a big bowl of popcorn and maybe, depending on the company, a couple of beers.

His first date had been that tired old cliché: dinner and a movie. A romantic comedy, because Trish was a fan of this one particular actor, or said she was, anyway. Stephen hadn't seen what was so great about the guy, but he'd gotten the hint: she was looking for someone who'd make her laugh, rather than someone'd who'd try to cop a feel during a scary movie. Stephen had liked that, even if he hadn't liked the movie that much.

"Some of these, I have seen already. Some, I hope to." Vlad picked up one of the DVDs. "I am always intrigued by what novel concepts and storylines people will conceive of."

 _Billy the Kid vs Dracula._ Stephen supposed it was a creative idea, at least. It might even be fun to watch, in the 'so bad it's good' kind of way.

"You are not wrong in stating that these items will not enable anyone to feed or defend themselves," Vlad said. "In that sense, they have no value, no worth."

"We're leaving the actual useful stuff for them to trade with people who actually need it."

Vlad inclined his head. "Exactly so, my Stephen."

"And you have terrible taste in movies."

" _De gustibus non disputandum est._ Or, in English, one cannot argue regarding taste."

Stephen didn't think that that had ever been true. In his personal experience, arguing about taste was not only possible, it was even expected. Facts, now, those were hard to argue about, even if some people still managed it. 

"You won't mind if I'm still going to try, right?" Great. Like he was going to find a copy of _Top Hat_ or _Dirty Dancing_ just lying around somewhere. Well, some of the Disney stuff was okay, too - it hadn't always been Yvonne and Shania who'd picked out _those_ titles for Friday family movie night. If Vlad liked the looks of _Billy the Kid vs Dracula_ , he'd probably love _Hotel Trasylvania_. Less blood and gore, probably, but hey, it wasn't as if he wanted to watch it for that.

Stephen might not be averse to action movies where the hero always managed to save the day with a clever quip and none of the bad guys knew how to shoot, but if he was going to have a quiet night in with a movie, he'd just as soon get one set in happy movie land, where every injury could be treated by slapping a bandage on it, or simply moving on to the next scene.

"Not at all. In fact, I might go so far as to say that I look forwards to it." Vlad smiled again. "As long as you realize from the beginning that your efforts will likely prove futile."

"Yeah, well, we'll just have to see about that, won't we?"

**Author's Note:**

>  _Billy the Kid vs Dracula_ is a real movie, according to Wikipedia
> 
> I've never seen it, but I happened across the title during research for another fic, and thus, the plot for this ficlet was born


End file.
